Hattie and The Wild Waves

 

Title- Hattie and the Wild Waves
Author/Retold- Barbra Cooney 
Illustrated by Barbara Cooney
Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction 
Grade level- 4-5th grade

The story begins with Hattie at her red brick house. She is a child of immigrants from Germany. Her brother ,Vollie, and sister, Pfiffi, has dreams of being rich and being a beautiful bride. Hattie wanted to be a painter, but her father laughed and said girls don’t paint houses. Hattie didn’t want to paint houses though. Her mother’s father was an amazing painter and their most prized painting was his, called Cleopatras Barge. Hattie saw it and wanted to draw it and she did. Her mother wanted Hattie to learn how to play piano or sew. Her hands were to small for piano and she was bad at sewing. Every summer they would go to the beach hose, and Hattie loved the sounds of the waves and the sight of the sea. As her whole world changed around her to being more and more expensive and extravagant, she grew to love it more and more. Her sister got married and her brother got rich with her father. One night when she was wither her family at the opera, she saw the performer sing her heart out. She decided then and there she wanted to paint her heart out. She went down to Coney Island the next day, close to the sea she found a fortune teller machine, and the fortune said that she would make “beautiful, beautiful pictures.” She ran home and told her parents she was going to become a painter. Her mother asked, just like her grandfather. Hattie said no, “just like me.”

I think this is a great book to inspire students to strive for what they want to do with their life, not what other want. They have their own identity, they just have to find it. I think that is one of the most important things to teach students or anyone for that matter. I would use this as a read aloud and respond type exercise like the day of or day before a career day. This will help students to make them start thinking about what they really want to do with their life. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Ant

Image
  Title- The Little ant  Author/Retold- Shirleyann Costigan, based one Aida Marcuse version Illustrated by Patti Boyd Photgraphed by Scott Campbell  Genre- Traditional Literature  Grade level- 1st-4th Grade Our story begins with an ant named Hormiguita. Hormiguita’s house got drenched by April showers. She asked the sun dry her home, but she couldn’t cause the clouds were in the way. Hormiguita asked the clouds to move so the sun could dry her house. The cloud said he can’t but she could ask the wind to blow the cloud away. So she asked the wind, but the wind said he no, he was going to be sleeping the whole day. So Hormiguita began to sing a lullaby to the wind and the wind started to fall into a deep sleep. Hormiguita began to climb up the winds beard and she took a feather and tickled his nose. This caused him to sneeze, which blew away the clouds, which let the sun dry Hormiguita’s house. This is a great book that teaches us how to have manners and taught a lesson on how to be kind
Read more

All Together

Image
Title- All Together, A Child’s Treasury of verse Author/Retold- Dorothy Aldis Illustrated by Helen D. Jameson Genre- poetry  Grade level- 1st graders to 12th graders All Together, A Child’s Treasury of verse is a collection of poems. The poem “Mouths” is about a child who she had two mouths, one to eat with and one to talk with. The child thinks that all the time mouths just wanna talk, but what they want is to chew. “Supper for a Lion” starts off with a lion in a cage walking back and forth. The lion thinks it’s time to eat. The child asks if the Lion wants stew or a bone. She tells the Lion to stop looking at her as if she would taste good.  I think this book is great for all ages. There are some poems that are very simple to understand, but enjoyable for younger children. There are others that are complex in nature and older English students can try to derive what that poem means to them. I would personally use this book as discussion piece exercise for older students. I would read
Read more

Chicken Little

Image
  Title- Chicken Little Author/Retold- Steven Kellogg Illustrated by Steven Kellogg Genre- Fantasy/Science Fiction Grade level- 1st - 4th Grade The story begins with a fox named, “Foxy Loxy” in a car. He spots a chicken and he’s getting ready to capture the chicken and eat it. An acorn hits the chicken and “Chicken Little” says the sky is falling. The chicken starts to wail and a chicken, a duck, a goose and her child, and a turkey come to help because they hear all the commotion. The fox is getting more and more excited because he sees so many things he could eat for dinner. The fox dresses up as a cop and arrives on the scene with his “police” truck and tells all the animals to get in the truck and he’ll take them to police headquarters. As they are getting in the truck, Chicken Little realizes that the fox is the infamous “Foxy Loxy” who is wanted by the police, but it was too late. The fox started to gloat at his prisoners and he tells them it wasn’t the sky that fell, but an acorn
Read more